Shared parental leave 🤯

[happynewyear26]

Hi 👋

Hubby is full time employed, and has recently set up a side hustle as a sole trader. He’s going to put me on payroll to work part time for him - I read I need to earn £129 a week to qualify for any maternity entitlement. he works for a global company that states they offer shared parental leave.

We plan on trying for a baby next year. My question is would I be able to take the two weeks mandatory leave, then my husband take parental leave from his full time employer whilst still working occasionally for his side business - it’s not a business he’ll be working all hours for but hoping to turn it into his main income with time.

Yes I believe so - I took maternity leave from my office job but continued to work on growing a self employment business (and checked this was fine through HR). It would be good in your case to double check in case the rules for shared parental leave are different, but I don’t see why they would be in this respect.

In theory yes, you would qualify for statutory maternity leave and pay which you can then share with your partner. However you do actually need to work for him, even if it’s just admin or something. But he cant put you down as an employee to pay you for no work. does he actually know how to have an employee - he’ll need to submit rti reports, give you a P60 each year, etc. He’ll also need to give you a contract of employment.

He also needs to check his current employment contract if he hasn’t already, to check he is allowed to do this work on the side in the first place.